


roll me to shore, collapse into me like a wave

by jessequicksters



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Avengers Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Surfers, Anxiety Attacks, BIG CANON DIVERGENCE, California, Identity Porn, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance Novel, Secret Identity, Sirens, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers IS STILL Captain America (but also a mermaid will explain), Summer Romance, Summer Vacation, Surfing, it's canon-tied, kind of, mermaid!steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-10-19 04:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17594720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters
Summary: Tony's been federally mandated to stay at a beautiful, secluded manor by the beach all summer long as part of a deal to allow him to continue being Iron Man.It's a quiet little town, with a lively surfing community just next door, a weird amount of spies and S.H.I.E.L.D persons of interest hanging around, a physiotherapist that may also be a liar and on top of all that, a beautiful blonde merman who may or may not be Captain America? Like, that same Captain America who got buried in the ice and was never found, until now.(In which the Avengers assemble over the course of a surfing contest in California, while Steve and Tony fall in love, obviously.)





	1. Chapter 1

As Pepper drops off the last of his bags on the front porch of Tony’s new beach manor, something starts to twist in his stomach. He realizes then it’s the feeling of being left alone, again. It’s not exactly a new sensation in his long, drawn out life made of a string of mistakes and etcetera, but it still somehow hurt.

At least, this time, Tony knew that Pepper wasn’t actively trying to hurt him. Of course, she wanted him to get better, as did everyone else in his life. They wanted what’s best for him and somehow, after everything, what’s best for him is still being alone.

Pepper clicks her heels together just as she stands by the door in her satin white dress. She looks pretty against the orange light behind her; it fits like a halo around her head.

“Thank you, Tony,” she says. He realizes then that he’s just said that out loud.

“I didn’t mean that—I mean, I did, but it was supposed to stay in my head.”

“I know. I’ll come by in a couple weeks, okay?”

“Yeah, I know, see you then. Just checking, the physical therapist—”

“Isn’t Maya Hansen, I’ve double checked, because she’s—”

“—a supervillain, yeah, glad we caught that one early, you’ve reminded me of why I’m here.”

Pepper smiles, leans forward and kisses him on his temple. “You’ll be okay, Tony. Get some rest. You deserve it.”

And just like that, the door clicks shut. Tony hears the car leaving the gravelly driveway, against the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline repeatedly. He finds himself standing still while looking through the windows for a few moments, absorbing the movements of the sea. It echoes, somehow, from his vision and into a ringing sound in his ear. Like a bell chiming in the air, it sounds exactly like sunset.

 

-

 

Carmel-by-the-Sea is actually, all things considered, not a bad place to go for summer rehab. It’s quaint and quiet—like, really quiet, not that that’s a bad thing. He’s had a beach house before, sure, in Malibu, but that was different, up on a cliff with a grand view that overlooked the ocean for miles out. He’s much more grounded now, as he drags his feet along the wet sand, slipping his flip flops back on and letting the waves wash away most of the gravel. In town, the lights are glowing red and blue from above the treetops.

He follows the mellow surf rock music and notices an uptick in the number of people gathered in the town center. One huge banner hung in between two trees spells out: **ANNUAL LONGBOARD SURF CONTEST WELCOME PARTY**. People in very colourful shorts and tees are mingling among each other and Tony manages to slip into the crowd.

He hasn’t had dinner yet, so he shrugs and grabs a shrimp cocktail from one of the tables and tries to keep a low profile. This was supposed to be a wellness retreat, and Pepper had specifically chosen this place as a place where the rich and famous could still be rich but less famous, to put it simply. Someone leans across the table from behind him and taps him on the shoulder.

“Rhodey? What are you—” Tony turns around and drops his voice, “I’m on official government-mandated exile. Some call it a vacation.”

Rhodey just smiles at him and claps him on the arm. “Relax, Tones. No one sent me to spy on you or anything. Just came because I wanted to make sure you were settling in all right. Not bad for a rich man’s neighborhood, huh.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty, whatever. I might go crazy if I’m going to be here all alone for two months, you gotta help me out, buddy. There are like, three spare rooms at my place, you could come stay?”

“And I would do what, exactly?”

“Hang out with me. Go to parties like this,” Tony waves his hand around until he catches a glimpse of the banner again. He points at it and lights up, “We could learn how to surf!”

“As tempting as that sounds, Tony. I gotta keep things running back in New York. And this was part of the deal remember? To get them off your backs, you had to complete your physiotherapy to prove you were—”

“—fit enough to fly the suit, yada-yada, I know, okay, good talk.” He claps Rhodey on the back and sulks off, grabbing another one of the shrimp cocktails to bring back to the manor.

“Tony!” Rhodey calls out, and he pauses. “It’s an open bar. Come on, man. For old time’s sake.”

He sighs, and only because they’re surrounded with a group of hot surfers who may or may not get lucky by catching his attention tonight, he turns around and says yes.

 

-

 

“Easy, there, Tones,” Rhodey says, dragging him in an attempt to steer them both towards the general direction home. “Are you sure it’s this way? We could’ve walked straight through the town. Beaches are very dangerous at night. Ever heard of drowning, Tony? People like you, when left without people like me, drown.”

“Yeah, but the ocean _singsss_ to me, Rhodeybear.” 

“That’s exactly what leads them to drown.” 

“But it sounds so pretty and I wanna hear more.”

He stops in his tracks for a moment, attempting to push Rhodey off, which just makes him clutch onto him a little more tightly. Rhodey’s had one too many drinks as well, but the fact is, he’s bigger and he’s more stable on his feet, therefore, he gets to herd Tony back home like a lost sheep.

Out in the waters, he sees a flicker of something reflecting off the surface, and a dip where the waves break. He can’t get any closer, because his feet are already wet and it’s cold and okay, yeah, Rhodey’s words about drowning are starting to ring in his head loud and clear.

But if he looks hard enough, there’s something in the shadows that looks like eyes blinking right back at him. It’s all too dark to discern, but Tony feels the hairs raising on the back of his neck. 

“You okay, there, still good to walk?” Rhodey asks, bringing his attention back to him.

“Yeah, yeah, I just thought I—never mind. Are we still far? Can Happy drive us home?” 

Rhodey just laughs, easing him back towards the right direction. “I’m gonna be flying over here a lot this summer, am I?”

“You betcha,” Tony attempts to wink, but that just results in both his eyes falling shut and his body deciding to go to sleep right then and there.

 

-

 

In his dreams, Tony feels himself drowning over and over again. He hits the bottom of some lake, his spine crashing against the rocky bed and his lungs giving out. And then he takes a breath, and he’s floating on the surface again until something drags him down. This happens repeatedly, like a cruel record that never ends. The music is chilling, blasts in heavy waves underwater and pierces through his ears and into his chest. It crushes him, from every direction, and there’s no place to go but back down.

Until one time, the impact never hits. He just floats, weak and still in the murky waters, as he feels two arms locking onto him from behind his body. They swim him back up and he turns around to try to thank the mystery rescue diver. He’s greeted with a splash of water on his face, as the diver swims off.

He floats on the surface for a while until he realizes that he’s stopped drowning.

 

-

 

By the time he actually wakes up, he finds a glass of water by his bedside table and a takeaway box filled with shrimp salad that Rhodey had bought for him. He checks his phone to find a text from Rhodey that says: _Had to take off early but enjoy the rest of your exile._

_I mean vacation._

Tony just laughs and texts back a quick: _Last night was fun. I think. Thanks for getting me in a bed._

He eats the shrimp salad because it’s the closest thing in proximity and he’s completely famished. Upon checking his phone again, he realizes that it’s noon. Uh-oh. Tony remembers then that physical therapist was scheduled to arrive at approximately now-o’clock.

When the doorbell rings, Tony manages to throw on a decent buttoned up off-white shirt and splashes some water on his face for good measure, too.

“Hi, Tony Stark?” the woman says, standing tall with a blank tank top on and some sports gear. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail as it looks like she’s already been on a run. 

“Yes, pleasure to meet you.” Tony extends an arm out for a handshake. “Pepper told me you’d be coming. What’s your name?”

“Hope Dawson, nice to meet you. I’ll be your physiotherapist over the course of these next few weeks.”

“Yep, perfect. Come on in, Hope, sorry for the—” Tony was about to say _mess_ , but the place looks pretty pristine at the moment. “Could I get you anything to drink?”

Hope just shakes her head as she sets down her duffel bag on the floor. She takes a seat and looks around the room for a while, as Tony tries to meet her eyes.

“So, what’s the program here, is this gonna be more of a summer yoga retreat kind of thing or an army boot camp?”

“Neither. We’ve devised a program specifically to assess and train your general fitness, combat skills, motor skills, flight skills and at the end of this, we’ll determine if you will be legally authorized to continue operating the Iron Man suit.”

“You do know it’s not just a suit, right. It’s literally who I am—did nobody see that press conference I did? I straight up told you guys, I am Iron Man. Actually, you know what, why bother, I took this to the highest court in the land and you still won’t get off my backs about this.”

Hope smiles, softer this time, though the lines around her eyes reveal more concern than she thinks she’s letting on. “Tony, you’ve had multiple recorded panic attacks over the past year, while operating the armor—Iron Man needs help, or maybe just a little break from the limelight. Besides, it says here on your medical records that you’ve suffered from a variety of physical complications too, the last one being… a fracture in your right ankle just under two months ago?”

Tony huffs, crossing his right leg over his left and rolling out his foot. “It’s fine now, good as new.”

“So, if I were to hypothetically take you on a ten-mile run and lead us through a series of combat exercises, which would maybe, require us to jump through a few literal hoops, you’d be fine?” She clasps her hands together over the papers on her lap as she leans forward.

“Hypothetically, I’d probably need to grab some lunch before that because, well, I just woke up and all Rhodey left me was some wet shrimp salad.”

“Hypothetically, I wouldn’t actually take you on that run today, because an important part of our program is to actually let the…” she flips through her notes again, “—three fractures left in your body heal properly before we start applying more stress to them. Tony, this is all about you. We want you to be taking care of yourself as best as you can so that you can still get out there and be Iron Man.”

 

-

 

After Hope leaves that afternoon, Tony slumps back on the beach, lying on his back in the sand as he lets the sea breeze flutter across his face and body. He actually did end up doing a yoga session with Hope today, which—what kind of yoga has he been doing all his life, because that felt like being torn open and put back together again at once.

In any case, he feels loose and relaxed now, like he could drift off to sleep at any second now. He almost does, until he sees something out of the corner of his eye splashing about in the waters.

He jolts upright and needs a moment to steady himself on his feet. That right ankle feels like it’s about to collapse any second now.

Holy son of Aphrodite—

“Hi,” the big, blonde and beautiful swimmer says with half his body perched on a rock.

“Are you—” Tony looks around at the rugged beach around them, with no other houses in sight tucked into this particular crevice of the coast. “Are you trespassing? Does my property extend out to this beach as well?”

Blonde seraphim laughs and god, he even sounds as beautiful as he looks. “I’m afraid not. Never met a piece of land you couldn’t buy?”

“No,” Tony replies, feeling his lips quirking upwards. “I guess it doesn’t apply for water. Tell me again, who are you and how did you just show up on my beach?”

“Again, not your beach. And I’m a traveler, I guess, just like you. I haven’t really been around here in a while but yesterday I saw someone move into that house and I’ve been dying to put a name to the face.”

Tony wants to come closer, get a better look at _his_ face, but the man’s too far out in the waters and Tony’s not exactly the best swimmer. So, he plants his feet firmly in the sand and puts on a winning smile for his new aquatic neighbor.

“Tony, and yourself?”

He grins as a wave crashes into his back and makes him tighten his grip on the rock. Oh, Tony wants to tell those waves to do that again as his muscles glisten in the light.

“Steve. It’s nice to meet you, Tony. How long are you staying for?”

“About two months. And yourself?”

“Hard to tell these days, but I am thinking of settling down somewhere more permanent sometime.”

Who is this guy? And why won’t he get out of the water? Tony has a feeling he’s not going to answer any of those questions right now, so he asks another one.

“Wanna settle at mine for the night? I don’t know anyone else here, my one friend left me this morning and there’s going to be a lady coming in every couple days to kick my ass, so I could use some company.”

Steve gives him an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I can’t tonight. I’ve got… things to catch up on.”

Tony barks out a laugh. “Like what? Moving on to the next rock in the next neighborhood?”

It hits him then, the banners from the town party last night: the surf competition that’s coming up in a month. Steve totally fits the profile for one of those guys. He’s got an athletic build, that laid-back ease in him, the weird nomad vibe and the general fluidity in water. 

“Maybe I’ll see you in Santa Cruz,” Tony says, and when Steve responds with a slightly perplexed look, “for the surf competition. I was at the party last night. You might have seen me, actually, being, uh, very drunk. And I stumbled back here, with the help of my friend Rhodes, and you know, you don’t have to hear the rest.”

Steve seems to relax at that. “Of course. Yeah. I’ll be surfing in the competition. I must’ve just missed you at the party. Will you be in Santa Cruz then, for registrations?”

“Uhh, when is that happening again?”

“Next week. Saturday,” Steve tells him.

“Oh, yeah, let me just check my schedule—totally clear. I’ll see you there.” 

“Perfect.”

“You are,” Tony blurts out, as he feels the heat rushing to his ears.

“Excuse me?”

“I said nothing. Great, see you then, Steve!” He turns around and starts walking back, before realizing that he should’ve probably tried harder to get Steve out of the water. The sun’s about to set soon and as Rhodey has told him now; the ocean can get very dangerous at night. 

As he turns his heel and looks back out at the ocean, the waters are now completely empty. The tides are slowly beginning to rise, as the waves get more and more aggressive, smashing into the rocks while seagulls start flying overhead. Where the hell did he go?

What a strange twenty-four hours it’s been. He ought to call Pepper and tell her just how weird the West Coast is, as confirmed by all prior suspicions and judgments. Oh, and Tony is definitely not going to freak out over the fact that Steve just vanished in the waters, like someone who got swallowed whole by a riptide or something in the split second he had his back turned to him. Nope, definitely not going to think about death by the ocean when Tony is going to be spending a lot of time near it over these next two months.

 


	2. Chapter 2

As Tony’s waits for what feels like an eternity on the pull-up bar, Hope finally comes back from her run, glowing with beads of sweat. Tony also notices the patches of sunburn on her shoulders, exposed from the tank tops she’s been regularly wearing, as well as the tiny tattoo of what looks like some kind of insect at the back of her neck. He can never get a clear view though, so the details are a little fuzzy. He’s noticing all these things as a man who’s been in a dead hang for far too long.

She smiles as she checks her watch. “Coming up on thirty minutes, Stark, I’m impressed.”

“Had a nice run?” Tony asks, switching over to grip the bar with his left hand as he shakes off the burn from his right arm. It still burns.

“Yeah, got a pretty good idea of some routes we could take next week. How are you feeling? Good for another twenty?”

Tony wheezes out a laugh, feeling the sweat dripping down his face and his neck. He tries to gulp, but the outdoor heat is drying out his mouth completely and the blood is quickly leaving his face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just—fuck, is it a hot day,” he croaks.

“I’ve got some water,” Hope says, kneeling down to pick up her bottle. She brings it to Tony’s lips as she squeezes the bottle empty into his mouth.

“Okay, give me a couple more minutes on this thing and I’ll jump down before my shoulders decide to pop off.”

She smiles and distracts him with conversations about his regular training regiment back in New York. It’s been a week since he’s first arrived at the manor and this is only his third day of training. Hope’s version of ‘taking it slow’ didn’t exactly line up to what he had in mind, but he likes her so far. She seems to be a straight shooter, as far as he can tell, who doesn’t seem to be afraid of opening up when Tony flips the tables on their conversations.

He knows that she came from a scientific background, much like him, and has only in recent years taken on a more active role ‘on the field’; she didn’t divulge too deeply into what that meant, but Tony assumed it was a similar type of job like what she’s doing now. Training soldiers and such, was the gist of him, from what he understood.

They manage to chatter on about government initiatives and the way private citizens should have a right to operate privately developed and owned technology. She seems to have pretty strong opinions on that one, and Tony, for one, is glad to have someone in his corner in discussions like this. 

Time flies by, and before he knows it, he’s on his knees in the sand stretching out his arms in front of him, bent over in a child’s pose.

“I’ll never use my arms again,” he groans into the sand, which is actually hot as fuck, and he quickly lifts his face up from it. He _tries_ to move his arms, but they’re not exactly responding to any of his brain signals at the moment.

“Wanna know how you did?" 

“Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t like tests unless I’ve made them up myself.”

“Fifty-one minutes.” 

“I was on that thing for nearly an _hour_ —really?” 

She laughs, inputting some numbers into her watch as she nods at him. “Between our first cardio tests and now your upper-body endurance, you’re doing pretty well so far.”

“Huh, this might actually turn into a vacation.” He sits back up and looks at the beach several feet away from them. His mind goes straight to something—or someone—he hasn’t seen in days. The same man who disappeared under the waves after a brief conversation they had. Tony wonders where he is now, if he really did just swim away or if something worse happened to him.

“Rest up,” Hope says, extending an arm out to pull him back up. “You deserve a nice lie-in this weekend. I’ll be back on Monday and we can get started on some combat training.”

Tony doesn’t know how he manages to get back into the manor for a shower, but he actually does. He even gets back out into town straight after to grab some lunch in a takeaway box back to his private beach. As Tony gulfs down some fish tacos by the beach, something in the water starts moving. 

He stands up to get a closer look at it and almost can’t believe his eyes. 

It’s him.

“Are you not happy to see me?” Steve asks, floating with his head above the waters as he gives him a little wave.

“I—I thought you were dead!” Steve makes a funny face, and Tony feels obliged to elaborate. “You just disappeared that day, in the waters, you—I thought you drowned in the water!”

Steve actually has the audacity to laugh, and Tony would want to throw a pebble at him if the man weren’t so goddamn angelic. “It takes a lot more than just a splash of water to get rid of me, Tony. How’ve you been?”

“Fine, yeah, I mean. House is still empty if you care to know that little detail,” Tony blurts out, only semi-regretting the words as they come out. He’s not going to stop trying.

“I was actually hoping you’d come and join me here,” Steve says.

“Right now? In the waters?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“Um,” Tony starts, because, well. How does he put this that won’t totally freak out the handsome stranger that he’s trying so desperately hard to get closer to? “I actually have a lot of water-related trauma, so, uh, I don’t actually know how I’d fare—I _can_ swim, technically, but it’s been a long time since I did it, for fun. Now it’s been so long I don’t even know if I still can? Or if I want to?”

Steve’s face actually turns sad at that. Oh, good, now he’s ruined the mood. 

“But I want to,” Tony says, taking a step forwards, peeling off his shirt— _ow, shoulders, pain_ —and swiftly throws it into the sand. 

“Tony!”

“I’m coming, and if I happen to drown trying to kiss you, then so be it.”

“Tony, no don’t—!”

Too late. He’s wading into the waters now and diving straight towards Steve. As soon as his head hits the waters, he remembers now, why he doesn’t swim for fun. Unlike oxygen running out of a supply tank or the air thinning up when he flies too high in the atmosphere, death by water truly is the most terrifying thing because it just engulfs you whole. Tony can’t think of another element on Earth that will do that. Fire sears off parts of your body until you’re left with ashes, but water just invades you like you were never really there—just another thing to fill.

The waves carry him further from the shore as he feels his feet leaving the seabed. He feels strong arms gripping his body and just like flying the suit, he feels himself rising with little to no effort. He opens his eyes to see Steve, up close, and oh god—there’s water in his eyes and Tony has to choke back out some of the water he’s swallowed, but it doesn’t take a man with perfect vision to see that Steve is actually, literally, born out of a book, perfect. 

His skin is glistening under the sun, his eyes are a gorgeous shade of baby blue and his lips— _fuck._ He’d do anything to take a nibble at those perfectly soft lips right now. Dehydrated and under the heat, Tony could really use a drink out of Steve’s fountain of _godliness_ right now.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, and it takes Tony about a fraction of the second to realize that Steve is holding him. Not just holding him, but their bodies are pressed tight together, with his arms wrapped around his waistline and clutching around his back right above his ass.

He should’ve jumped in the water earlier.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“You just told me you had ‘water-related trauma’ and the next thing I see is you jumping headfirst into the water! Tony, if I’d have known, I would’ve just come out to see you.” 

“So you do have legs,” Tony teases, and Steve smiles like there’s an inside joke in there somewhere.

“I do."

“Are you actually going to come out?” Tony asks, suddenly worried that this is all some weird fever dream his exiled brain has cooked up. It’s only been one week and he’s already this close to losing it.

Steve’s response echoes his hesitations. “I don’t usually do this, Tony.”

“Well, let’s go to yours.”

Steve lets out a weak laugh as he looks over his shoulder out into the waters behind him. “I don’t think that’ll be feasible.”

“Why not?”

“Because I live far.”

“How’d you wind up all the way to my corner of the beach, then? You’re not secretly a reporter, are you? If they’ve truly stooped to a new low and started hiring out hot surfers to lure me into a scandal, I swear—”

“Tony, I am not a reporter,” Steve holds him tighter and meets his gaze this time. Tony doesn’t know what it is about him, but when he looks him in the eyes, it’s like he immediately trusts him. Like he’d let him reach into his chest and take his heart, no questions asked.

So Tony stops asking questions and leads Steve out of the waters. They manage to reach the fringes of the shoreline until suddenly, Tony hears something.

It’s that ringing again in the air, the one that sounds like wind chimes dancing in the breeze. He feels Steve letting go of his hand; just as their feet are about to escape the waves trying to entice them back in. No one else is on this beach but the two of them, and judging by the way Steve suddenly tenses up and turns around back to face the waters, Tony’s certain that he hears it too. 

“What is that noise?” Tony asks, gambling on the fact that Steve would know and might reveal something about it.

“I have to go,” Steve says.

“What, where?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll be back in a few days—it’s just, I shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve come too close,” Steve says, and in one swift move, dives back into the ocean. Tony sees something glimmering in the waters, then, something that looks like scales among the wet surface above. He sees Steve swimming off into the distance and his head starts feeling very light all of a sudden, as the song gets more and more intense in his ears.

It feels like a headache if a headache actually makes you feel like bliss.

As Tony squints at the sight of Steve swimming off into the waters, his first thought is that that the man is officially a freak, and his second is—is that a _fucking tail?_

 

-

 

“Tony—Tony! I need you to calm down,” Pepper tries to placate him over the phone. He’s back in the manor now, trying to clear his head and get a sense of what is going on. 

“Pep—I swear, if this is some weird government experiment to see if I’m going to go nuts then—oh my god. That’s it. That’s their plan.”

“What is, Tony?” Pepper doesn’t even feign exasperation at this point.

“They send a hot mermaid to my beach, knowing that I’ll bring him inside the manor, and they’ll use him to pacify me before taking the suit off me! I’ve figured it out, and I’m leaving.” 

“Why would the government send you _a mermaid,_ of all things? Can you listen to what you’re saying?” 

“I’m saying it would’ve been highly effective and it would’ve caused no fuss. They’d chalk it up to a tragic accident where I drown after a night of heavy drinking. Isn’t that in the contract—the rights to the suit go public if I, uh, die or something.”

“You’re not dying in California.”

Tony blinks and pauses for a second to think about it. “You’re right, that would be a colossal mistake.”

“I think you’re just tired from all your physical exams this week. I’ll contact Hope to tell her to take it easy on you next week. How’ve you been getting along?”

“Oh, fine, fine. Hope’s great, yeah. Anyway, I was saying—”

“And you need to get out of the manor more. I don’t just mean waiting on the beach for some—” Tony can hear Pepper nearly saying _mermaid_ under her breath, but her lips refuse to let the word out, “—man to come and entertain you. Drive up to Santa Cruz or something, go sailing a boat, I don’t know. Do something.”

“Huh, you know that’s given me an idea.” 

“You know I don’t like it when you say that because it means you’ve just come up with a completely new idea of your own.”

“Right as always, Ms. Potts,” Tony replies.

 

-

 

As Tony drives around the neighborhood handing out fliers for the community barbecue he’s hosting on Monday evening, the drive back to his beach manor gets a little more interesting when he sees someone moving into a house in the next secluded cove next to his.

He parks right across the street and walks over to the man lugging around two suitcases and dropping them at the top of the stairs leading to his house. Tony watches as the suitcases slide back down and manages to catch them at the bottom.

“Moving pains, I know how it is,” Tony says. The man turns around, surprised at Tony’s presence, and he instantly looks familiar: dark curly hair with brown eyes and soft features sitting behind his glasses. 

“Holy shit, you’re Bruce Banner,” Tony says, nearly dropping the suitcase again.

He flushes a little at that and sighs, shit, the man’s probably trying to get away from the limelight too.

“Sorry,” Tony quickly throws it out there. “I just—I’m a huge fan of your work and the way you, uh, turn in to a big green rage machine and all that.”

His eyes widen, nodding incredulously. “Thanks. I know who you are, too.”

When Tony manages to get the suitcases up, Bruce takes a flyer and examines it for a second. 

“Thought it would be nice to get the know the neighbors a little more—I’m going to be here for two whole months and my ex says I might go crazy if I don’t talk to another human apart from my therapist and a mermaid I possibly dreamed up in my head.”

“Mermaids?”

“You know what, never mind. I’ll see you at the barbecue, yeah?”

“Looks nice,” Bruce says, and Tony can tell he’s not entirely sold on the idea but it seems like he’s facing the same problem of making new friends, too. “I’ll come, why not?”

“That’s the spirit,” Tony pats him on the shoulder, as he gives him a warning look, and Tony quickly retracts his hand. “Looking forward to chatting to you at the party, Dr. Banner, I can imagine you have a lot of great anecdotes to tell.”

He sees the wry smile on Bruce’s face forming as he unlocks his car across the road. “Something like that.” 

At least that’s one person at the party who won’t be a complete stranger to him, much less some random rich douchebag on vacation. Tony tried to steer clear of inviting those types, but it was hard to tell sometimes. As well acquainted as Tony used to be with them, they did hide their fangs well, as he used to. A lot of people seem to be hiding a lot of secrets around here, and Tony isn’t sure whether he’s ready to uncover them anytime soon.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve was never any good at keeping secrets. His Ma told him that much. Whenever he’d walk back into the house after a late night with Bucky, or wore a couple bruises on his face, she didn’t even bother trying to weasel the truth out of him. It was always, ‘you’re going to tell me or I won’t have it in me to ask’, and Steve hated seeing his mother’s pleading eyes.

He much preferred it when people asked because then he’d have an answer. He struggled with courage sometimes, with offering parts of himself on a plate, like a fresh shirt ready for inspection, laying himself out flat to iron out all the creases and mistakes hiding in the nooks and crannies.

But people don’t know what they don’t know. He can’t fault them for that, only himself for not being able to find the words to tell them.

He sits on top of the lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, the waters dotted with the tiny lights of fishing boats moving in the night. Nothing much on land, just rugged hills and grass for miles and miles.

He hears footsteps coming in from behind him, and the smell of hot cocoa in the cold night air.

“How many rounds of the lighthouse?” Sharon asks, leaning into the edge of the railing and passing him a mug.

“Twenty, I think? I don’t feel tired,” Steve replies, bringing the mug up to his lips and taking in the rich aroma. Still hot.

“You’re growing into your legs,” Sharon says. “Making good progress, and fast.” Steve hears it in her tone of voice, the unspoken sentence after. _Too fast._

“I’m sorry, Sharon. I don’t know what came over me—I just. I still haven’t been feeling like myself, even when I think I’m getting there. When I spoke to him, there was something in the way he looked at me. It was like…”

“You felt like he was going to tell you he knew exactly who you were. Confident and certain, Tony Stark the visionary, surely he’d point you to where you’re supposed to go.”

“Yeah—yeah, that’s exactly it. How did you know?”

Sharon sighs and exhales, taking a sip of her drink as Steve still has his hands wrapped around his own.

“Our families go way back,” she answers, looking out into moving streak of white light in the water like she’s searching for something. “I ended it when I chose this life. Too many secrets and I didn’t want to be a liability. Better to be a ghost than a distant friend.”

“Well, I don’t wanna be a ghost. Not anymore. I know that during the war I had to—I couldn’t be myself. Steve Rogers. But now that it’s over… I can’t remember who I was before. I can’t remember how to be me.”

“You don’t have to remember, Steve. It’s the 21st Century, and you can be whoever you want to be now.” Sharon strokes the back of his head and walks off, and without turning around says, “Only thing to remember is once you step up onto the podium, people will start to do their bidding. You might not like where you end up.”

Steve sighs and gazes out into the waters again. It’s been months, nearly half a year since Sharon found him in the ice in the winter. She managed to get him out of cryo with the help of some experimental drug that was supposed to help with the body’s homeostasis. She took it herself before trying it on him, and now they’ve been gifted with a bizarre form of physiological adaptation that gave them both… mermaid tails, whenever they were underwater.  
  
They’ve been swimming from coast to coast, because apparently the organization that she was working for has been compromised and she isn’t about to bring him back until the situation is handled.

He can’t sit back and just watch the world go by for another day. He can’t—not with the rumors, the whispers of what’s coming next. Sharon doesn’t know when or how, or what it even is, but there’s a rattling feeling in the breeze that a dark shadow is about to be cast over the world and Steve will need to be there, on the front lines, to face it.

His cocoa has gone cold. He sets it down on the floor and gets ready to jog up and down the height of the lighthouse again as many times as he can before the bird of the night whisks him away to the land of dreams.

 

-

 

In the morning, after breakfast, Steve and Sharon go for their swim. They usually go and scout the coastlines for quiet places to stay next time, away from the prying eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D or who knows who else, but this time, Steve insists that they stay.

They’re floating in the middle of the sea, far from land, and Steve decides to tell her.

“I’m going to tell him,” Steve says. 

Sharon pushes her wet hair back, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun on her face. “That’s up to you.”

“Not about who I am, not yet—just, that I’m a mermaid. I’m going to join the surf contest in Santa Cruz as well.”

“Can you surf?”

“I thought you’d teach me,” Steve smiles, and Sharon just gives him an incredulous smile.

“I can’t, but I know someone who does. We can trust her, too.”

“Oh, good,” Steve replies, curiosity peaked. They haven’t met many people in the months they’ve been traveling, and certainly no one that Sharon would let Steve reveal himself to. “Another agent?”

“If we’re being technical, yes. She’s not tied to anyone, so we’ll stay under. I’ll call her up tonight. You can go to Tony’s barbecue, if you like.”

“Are you not coming?”

“I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet. Be sweet on him. He’s sensitive, more than you know.”

Steve nods in understanding, and they both swim back to the lighthouse without another word.

Days go by quickly as a mermaid. Unlike being a soldier in the war, there are no restrictions in the vast ocean; there is nowhere that Steve cannot go, deep or shallow. He forgets himself, in the expanse of the waters, swimming with fish, seals, among coral and inside underwater caves. Hours feel like minutes, and Steve can go for weeks underwater go by without even a breath of air on the surface.  
  
In those first few months, Steve spent most of his time down under. After being under the ice for so long, his body had adapted to being enveloped in the cold, and it was comforting. The sun was too hot, too loud and bright, piercing into his eyes and skin as if he was about to burn up in flames, even underwater. He never swam close to the surface. 

Now, he’s spending more and more time on land, regaining his bearings in the world, on an entirely different coast of America that he’d never even set foot on back in the 40’s. The world was new. He felt like he had just been born again.

He gets ready for Tony’s party and puts on his best outfit, a navy blue button-up shirt paired with dark jeans. It was cool enough at night that he wouldn’t feel too stuffed. He thinks he can handle it, anyway, being without his tail for the night.

Sharon drives him forty-five minutes up the coastline trail back to Carmel-by-the-Sea and drops him off in the neighborhood.

“Good thing you picked up a flyer when you were bringing us lunch yesterday,” Steve says from outside the car, as Sharon’s wrapped up in her windbreaker in the driver’s seat, arm hanging out the side of the window.

“You okay to swim back?” Sharon says.

“Won’t keep you up tonight,” Steve throws his hands in the air and she nods.

“Good. Have fun, and if there’s trouble—”

“I’ll handle it,” Steve says. He was Captain America, after all.

 

-

 

Tony’s mansion is huge, for lack of a better word. For a one-person home, it’s rather excessive. There’s probably at least two hundred people roaming around, and Steve didn’t even know there were these many people in the town. He quickly makes his way to where the party seems to be buzzing in the backyard, from the signs of smoke coming from the grill and the scent of fresh sausages cooking, sweet rum and piña coladas.

It doesn’t take him long to spot Tony in the crowd, speaking to a group of people flocking around him. He’s wearing a red Hawaiian tee with flowers, a fruity drink in hand while the other waves around expressively as he’s telling some kind of story which is, apparently, hilarious.

Steve looks around him, trying to find a drink to grab onto or somewhere where he can stand and just wait for the crowd to clear. But maybe they never will. What if he just ends up standing under some tree, pathetically, until the whole night is over and Tony’s packing up the party? What if he thinks Steve is a weirdo, the fact that he even showed up uninvited—well, technically the whole town was invited, and as someone who kind of moves through the town—

“Steve?” Tony’s voice, unmistakable, suddenly cuts through the crowd. “Steve? Is that you?” 

Steve looks up, nearly spraining his neck at the speed. Tony’s looking at him, jaw hanging as he’s smiling in disbelief.

“If you’ll excuse me for a second, I just—found someone,” Tony tells them as they disperse.

“Hi,” Steve says.

“I thought you didn’t live around here,” Tony says, eyeing him up and down, not even trying to hide his amusement.

“I don’t. A friend of mine—uh, found one of your flyers in town and gave them to be. Tony Stark’s BBQ Extravaganza. Sounded fun.”

“So you came all the way here, from wherever it is you live, after disappearing on me the other afternoon?” 

Steve feels his cheeks heating up. “I’m sorry about that, I really—it wasn’t a good time. I don’t usually, uh, do this.”

“Is this a mermaid thing? You don’t usually go on land, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Um,” Steve replies, trying to fumble his way through his words. “You don’t seem, uh, freaked out or anything.”

“So you _are_ a mermaid!” Tony points to him as he drinks down his cocktail from the straw. “I did freak out, majorly. For a day and a half, and then I got over it.” 

“Oh. That’s nice?”

“Now, you’re gonna have to explain to me the logistics of… that,” Tony points to his legs. “And the tail I saw when you were swimming off into the ocean. But onto more pressing matters, are you a government spy? Because if you are, then I’m going to have to very politely ask you to leave.”

Tony pokes him, splaying his fingers all over Steve’s chest, applying a little more pressure than expected. Or necessary, for that matter.

“I’m…” Steve tries to take a breath but ends up choking on himself instead. So he shakes his head to get his message across.

“Are you—is that a no to the government spy?”

Steve nods.

Tony’s face lights up into a smile, bright and excited. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am right now.”

Someone passes by with a tray of shots, and Tony grabs two and hands one to Steve.

“Here, take it. For the—thing, for being a mermaid and not being a spy.”

“Tony, if you could not say that part so loudly,” Steve says quietly, stepping forward to close the distance between them.

“Oh? Is that like some kind of secret, then? I never understood the whole secret identity, thing. Iron Man is a public figure; therefore the public deserves to know the man inside the armor. If my dad were alive, boy, would he give me a hell of a time about it. He never even told me who Captain America was, can you believe it? All those stories about the greatest hero America had ever known, filled my head with those, and all I wanted was a name to the face, to get a glimpse of the man behind the mask, and all he could say to me was: not until you’re older, boy.”

Steve’s gut twists into knots. 

“Well, I’m older now. He carried that secret to his grave.” He looks at his shot glass and holds it up. “Anyway, sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me, but we should drink to that.”

Steve hears the clink of their glasses despite not moving his arm and watches as Tony downs the shot. He realizes then that he may not have caught Tony at the best time, considering the man’s reputation for excessive drinking, among other things.

A man comes in between them, then, wearing a deep purple shirt and glasses that he keeps adjusting on his face as he blinks, like it doesn’t quite fit his face.

“Hey, Tony. I think I’m going to head back, but thank you for the wonderful food and everything else. It’s been great.”

“Oh no, muffin, stay longer,” Tony says, resting an arm on his shoulder.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, I need to—”

“Steve, have you ever heard of the Hulk? Bruce Banner?” Tony says, pulling the man in closer, who’s now rubbing his face with a hand. “Thought you should meet each other, seeing as you two have a penchant for shifting moods and such.”

Tony winks at Steve, who has daggers in his eyes now.

“You don’t know me,” Steve says, harsher than he had intended.

“And that’s no fault of mine,” Tony says.

“Hey, listen,” Bruce cuts in, giving Steve his best apologetic look. “He’s just had too much to drink for tonight. Don’t—try to take everything that comes out of his mouth with a grain of salt.”

“Maybe a whole mouthful of salt,” Tony says.

“What’s your problem?”

“I don’t like a man with secrets.”

“You haven’t been asking me anything worth answering.”

Bruce looks at both of them and swiftly side steps away. “I’ll just go now. Thanks again, Tony, for the party. Nice to meet you too, um—”

“Steve. He’s not from around here,” Tony finishes.

“Right.” Bruce disappears quickly after that.

“Is there something you wanna ask me, Tony?”

Tony exhales, and Steve notices him cooling down, maybe even a flash of regret about the way they spoke to each other. Or maybe Steve’s just reading too much into it.  
  
“This place is so weird,” Tony says, finally, looking around. “I’m gonna head to the beach for, uh, fresh air if you wanna come with.”

“We’re outside.”

“Yeah, but barbecue smoke and all that.” He watches the hoard of people around them, chattering among themselves and laughing, dancing with each other. Steve realizes for the first time tonight that Tony doesn’t particularly care for any of them, and neither do they about Tony.

He feels bad all of a sudden, for being so quick to rise to anger. He offers what he can.

“I’m sorry, for being—” he searches for the word, “salty.”

Tony’s lips quirk upwards slightly as he lets out a soft chuckle. “Yeah. Sorry, I’ve got issues, if you can’t tell already.”

“We all do.”

“Yeah, but mine are worse than most. That’s why they locked me up in here. I know to most people this place looks like paradise, but it’s my prison.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “You don’t deserve to be locked up, no matter how beautiful the place. A cage is still a cage. Wanna talk about it?”

“If I recall, you still haven’t responded to my invitation,” Tony says, running a hand through his hair as he bites his bottom lip, cocking his head to the direction of the beach behind Steve's shoulder.

“Oh,” Steve finally gets it. “Oh, yes.”

Tony gives him a look that’s going to make him drown one of these days.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Tony has his legs stretched out in front of him, his back leaning against the palm tree as he watches the waves swallow themselves back into the deep night. The moon is bright and beautiful, but that isn’t what’s capturing his attention at the moment. It’s Steve, sitting across him with a beer bottle in his hand, sand all over his feet and a dopey smile on his face like he’s just another man, someone who Tony’s supposed to feel comfortable around.

“You’re not making this easy, you know,” Tony says, fiddling with the straw from his cocktail, licking off the last bits of sweet foam scooped up from the bottom of the glass.

“Which part?” Steve asks.

“The part where we’re supposed to just fall into bed with each other,” Tony says, casting his gaze away to another tree. 

“Is that what you want?” 

“It’s supposed to be what I want, but then I look at you, sitting there with a story—no, it feels like a secret, to tell. And the curious part of my mind wants to figure out what that is. Of course, the rest of me is telling me that that’s just going to be a recipe for disaster and I don’t even want to come close to knowing what you’re hiding below the surface, fish prince.”

He still can’t bring himself to look at Steve. “Did I get that right?”

There’s a quiet pause that Tony can only take as a confirmation as all his worst fears start flooding in. That Steve can’t be trusted. That he’s using him, somehow. Or the worst of all: that he’s as perfect as he seems and Tony’s just split open his heart to someone who might actually want to come in. He’s not sure if he’s ready for that scenario just yet.

“Look, Tony. I don’t know you very well, or at all—but I know you’ve been through a lot and I can understand if you have a hard time trusting people. I’m not here because—because anyone told me to be. That afternoon I saw you on the beach; it was purely a chance encounter. Do you not believe in those?”

“Probabilities are usually slim.”

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” Steve says, and he’s much closer than Tony remembers him being. He’s crawled over to him and Tony is suddenly hyper-aware of the feeling of sand underneath them, cool and soft and tactile. He notices the way it falls into his shorts as he slides forwards, knees scraping against the coarse grains. 

Steve’s hair is blowing in all the wrong directions all over his face because of the wind, but he looks gorgeous, anyway. Tony reaches out to rest a hand over his chest and tentatively presses a thumb over the top button. He looks up at Steve, still sitting with an arm slung over his knee bent upwards. Tony feels like he’s in a pleading position, looking up at a statue of Mary or something, in an altar at the church.

Steve is kind of like—well, the man’s practically an angel, from this angle. He smells like one too, sweet and salty from the sea and just rich in this strong scent of a man who can keep Tony up all night. Fuck, that’s the buzz from the alcohol talking. He feels his heart beating louder the closer he gets to Steve, the more his fingers slip between the buttons of his shirt to touch his dense, hot chest.

He can feel Steve taking deep breaths.

“What did you say about being here again?” Tony says, feeling himself slightly enchanted by the man in his hands.

“I, uh—” Steve starts, drawing in a sharp breath as Tony brings another hand to his knee, sliding it up the underside of his thigh and closer to his groin.

_“Tony.”_

“You okay, little mermaid?”

Steve leans forward so that their foreheads are touching, noses brushing against the others. Tony grips his shirt even tighter and yanks him close. 

“C—Can I, uh, kiss you?”

“Of course you can, you gorgeous hunk—” Tony says, and barely reaches the end of his sentence before Steve’s lips are crashing into his, desperate and to Tony’s surprise, assertive. 

He holds Tony’s face in his hands and it’s an oddly tender sensation, coupled with the fact that his tongue is currently working its way around Tony’s mouth. He feels himself blush, because he knows what it’s like to be wanted—of course, he does, he’s Tony fucking Stark—but the way Steve’s kissing him right now and the way he’s just holding him, gently and caressing the back of his head and brushing his hands through his hair, it’s an entirely new feeling that he can’t find the right word for.

Lost in his head as he’s letting himself go, Steve pulls away for a brief moment.

“Is this okay?”

“Hmm?” Tony says, eyes finally opening once more. “Oh, god, _yes_. Jesus, it’s more than okay.”

He goes for the man’s neck and plants biting kisses right underneath his jaw. He’s not going to break, Tony can tell. What he doesn’t expect is the sound that comes right after, as Steve lets out a goddamn moan that sounds like—twelve different voices in one harmony of pleasure.

He seems to be a little embarrassed at that as he bites down his lip when Tony’s kisses start getting more and more aggressive.

“None of that, you’re singing for me tonight.” Tony places a finger on Steve’s bottom lip, applying a tiny bit of pressure as his mouth falls open. 

“Maybe not the best idea,” Steve says, voice low.

“Why, you’re a mermaid, right? Not a siren?” 

“Yes, but when I sing it tends to let… others, know I’m around.”

Tony thinks about the implications of that for a second. _Others_. There are other mermaids. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t considered this up until now, probably because his mind has been so goddamn fixated on Steve. Steve, who’s now digging his knees into the sand as he straddles Tony from above, looking at him as he’s lying on his back in the sand, like he’s glowing. Like he’s a box of treasure on the bottom of the ocean or something, and he’s ready to open him up and—

Steve turns his head and looks back into the waters. Oh, no. Not this again.

“Do you see that?”

Tony lets out an exhale as he tries to prop himself up on his elbows and crane his neck up. “See what?” 

“That. There’s something in the water.” 

Tony squints his eyes and does start to notice something. It’s the faint blue glow of something floating closer to shore. It doesn’t look like your typical phenomenon of bioluminescence because it looks like something dense, packed into a ball of light. Or even a cube.

Steve is oddly silent as they watch the cube topple onto the sand on the beach. 

“You okay, hot stuff?” Tony brings a hand up to touch Steve’s forearm but feels the muscles tense. He’s also cold, much colder than he has been before; even compared to when they were both in the waters that first afternoon Tony took a dive.

He sees the fear in eyes even when he has half his head turned against him. That's a new look on him.

Steve gets up and as Tony tries to follow, holds an arm out behind him. “Stay back.”

“What? No, Steve, where are you going?”

He starts running to the coastline and darts off faster than Tony’s ever seen anyone go. And drinking usually makes things go slower in his head, so Steve must’ve been going pretty damn fast. Tony tries to catch up and watches as Steve falls into the ground and grabs a hold of the cube in his hands. What is that thing?

Tony gets a better look at it when he’s standing from over Steve’s shoulder. It looks… familiar to him, a bright glow in his mind, somewhere from his childhood, but how can that be? How is a glowing blue cube on a California beach drudging up memories of the Stark family mansion and his father closing the doors on him every night?

“Steve, are you okay? Can you please tell me what that thing is?”

“Something that shouldn’t be here,” Steve says, turning around to look at him. For the first time ever, Steve actually looks sad. “I’m sorry, Tony. I have to—”

“No, you are not going to swim off again—you’re not going anywhere, not without me. Please, Steve. Something’s clearly bothering you and I want to help. Besides, I have a bad feeling about that thing in your hands and I want to know what it is.”

“Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

Tony sits on the ground next to him and wraps an arm around his shoulder. “Please, Steve, take me with you. Anywhere is better than here, better than being alone.”

Steve reaches out to caress his cheek, but he can’t seem to meet Tony’s eyes.

“Okay, but I have to tell you something. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

And that’s when Tony’s heart sinks.

He sees the lights of several boats in the distance, tiny white dots moving closer towards them. Steve turns to him with an expression on his face that can only be described as panic.

“I know you might not trust me right now, but there are people looking for this thing and they can’t have it.”

“What is it, I want to know.” 

“It’s—I’ll explain later, I promise.”

“You’re going to tell me, okay? Are you listening—”

“—Tony, we really need to get this out of here—”

“—I want to help you, but then you tell me the truth. All of it.”

Steve’s eyes are soft as he nods, conceding.

“I will, I promise.” 

Tony huffs out a breath as he pulls his shirt off. “Right.”

“What are you—” Steve’s mouth falls open as he sees the arc reactor in Tony’s chest, glowing blue and bright, a similar colour to the cube. Tony pops it out of his chest, making sure to take deep breaths as he holds it in his hand for Steve to see.

“How well do you swim?”

“Nearly as fast as a sailfish and as deep as some seals.” 

“If this little thing gets lost in the ocean, I may very well die. I didn’t bring a spare with me on this little vacation they set me up for. So I’ll leave it out here on the beach while I pretend I’ve lost my senses after a night of martinis, while you go hide in my house. Fair?”

“Thank you, for doing this.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Tony says as the boats are fully in view now. He assumes his position, lying on the ground as Steve runs off to the mansion. He lets the reactor float away into the shallow waves, hoping it won’t go too far, at least until they arrive. Whoever _they_ are.

“Also, keep an eye on me, will you. If you see trouble, just unlock my red briefcase on the living room table.”

He’s really banking on the hope that they won’t be pointing guns at him. He knows Pepper didn’t let him bring any suits with him, especially with the government trying to keep his lab on lockdown, but he snuck out the Mark 6 prototype with him anyway. What can they do to stop him? He lies on the ground, stomach twisting in knots, thinking of Steve and what kind of secrets he’s been hiding. He almost wishes there was a fight coming so that he could at least blast something, or use his fists. Oh, no. He’s meant to be running a marathon with Hope tomorrow. He really shouldn’t have stayed up all night drinking and trying so desperately to woo Steve like a sailor lost at sea. He knows how the tales and legends go. You look over your boat, you get dragged under and drown under the waves. Well, he’s definitely about to get dragged under now.

“Tony Stark,” a man says, taking heavy steps towards him as he trudges through the shallow waters. He has the arc reactor in his hand and holds it up for him to see. “I think this belongs to you.”

“Listen, I’m a little drunk right now, I’m not sure if you’re real, or—should I be looking at the patch or the eye?”

“Oh, I am very real. I am the realest thing you’re ever going to meet,” the man replies, bent over Tony with a grin on his face. “Director Fury, of SHIELD. Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stark. Now, do I just press this inside your little chest cavity or do we need to get you on an operating table?”

“Nope, no operating table needed just—” Tony makes grabby hands at him until he hands it over, before re-installing it in his chest. “Okay, there we go. Who are you and what do you want?”

“Me? Oh, I’m nobody. I’m just the person who rented out this manor for you. Have you been enjoying it? And would be alright if I came in and asked you a few questions?” 

Tony sits up and sees a whole group of men in suits flanked behind him. He sighs and realizes that there is no easy way out of this. Time to entertain a new guest, it seems.

 

-

 

Nicholas J. Fury asks him questions like they’re in an interrogation room. Tony doesn’t always know how to respond, so he does what he can. He deflects. He pretends he doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, about the suspicious activity going on on the beach, the mysterious blue cube they’re looking for and manages to convince him that he’s seen nothing, knows nothing, and the only thing that glows in the dark around here is the reactor in his chest.

He gets his men to come in with sensors and energy detectors that are definitely picking up on something. Fury keeps a tight lip on their findings and Tony’s still sitting on the sofa with a hand over his face, praying to god Steve isn’t still rattling about, hiding in his cupboard or something.

By the time the raid is over, the men pack up their things and Fury leaves Tony a name card.

“Call me if you see anything suspicious.”

“Like a man in a trench coat showing up to my manor in the middle of the night?" 

He smiles and turns the lights off for Tony on his way out. Tony watches as the boats disappear again into the waters before stepping back from the window.

“Shit.”

His phone buzzes and there's a new text from someone.

_Hey handsome, I had fun tonight. Swing by my place next time?_

Underneath it is an address of a farm in Pescadaro, about an hour and a half away.

He gets another text immediately after.

_If you let me kiss you like that again, I’ll let you know all my secrets._

Tony’s heart nearly bursts out of his chest. He feels like a goddamn teenager receiving sexts for the very first time. This is so very obviously Steve, except he’s not sounding anything like the Steve he knows. Something must be wrong. Something about Fury and SHIELD and that fucking cube everyone keeps going on about.

His first thought is to send a text to Hope to cancel their session today because he honestly can’t think of anything worse that’s going to make him vomit than the thought of doing a marathon while hungover.

His next text—and this is not his finest moment, he can admit this, he’s so very, very exhausted, more than mildly annoyed at this whole situation and bordering on delirious at this point—is sent to Steve:

_I’m not going to let you off the hook until you can’t get enough of my name on your mouth._

Safe to say he immediately regrets it the minute he sends it, and the blurry screen in his hands starts to show a row of three dots in a bubble, indicating that a reply is coming his way.

_That the only thing you want in my mouth?_

Tony bites down a smile, and that’s how he ends up sexting Steve all night long.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Tony takes the Audi out of the garage for the first time since arriving at the manor. It's a bright day for a drive along the coastal roads, a nice breeze in the air as the sun warms up his face and the back of his neck as he rides with the top down, still riding the high from last night’s texts with Steve. Whitney Houston's How Will I Know is on the radio, and Tony hums along to it, following the empty trail of the road in front of him.

"Oh, wake me, I'm shaking, wish I had you near me now.”

He eventually finds the town of Pescadero and slows down, as the roads get narrower with winding turns. He sees the lighthouse at the edge of the town, a barrier between the land and sea. Steve lives on a farm situated near the coast, slightly separated from the tiny cluster of shops on the outskirts of the town.

He knocks on the door, ready to charm the man and pull all of the stops. Tony’s optimistic, really, to where this is going between them. He even bought up a bouquet of flowers from an old lady with a stall down the road.

Footsteps start to approach and Tony puts on a smile. It falls as quickly as the silence that drops when the door opens. 

It's not Steve. It’s a ghost.

She's in a loose cotton shirt, blonde hair falling in waves over her shoulders with eyes that look tired like she hasn’t slept in days.

"Tony," she finally says, still holding the door open, not moving an inch.

"Sharon."

He clucks his tongue under the roof of his mouth and she cocks her head to the side to let him walk past and inside. He doesn't even have time to look around the room, doesn't take anything in. She directs them to a table and they sit across each other, staring at each other’s eyes as if this isn’t quite real.

"So I’m supposed to be the first one to ask for an explanation?" Tony asks, setting down the flowers on the table. 

"I joined SHIELD."

"I figured that much, considering it was all you ever talked about during our summer vacations back then. You promised you'd visit me in college, you—I never heard from you, not since my parents' funeral."

"I _am_ sorry, Tony. I was under… a very strict training regiment." 

"Uh-uh, so what, you got something to do with this Fury guy showing up? What did you do with Steve? Did you—”

"Steve's at the beach getting surf lessons."

“I—” Tony opens his mouth and closes it again. That really wasn’t the answer he thought she was going to give.

"He thought you'd come later, after the long night you two had."

His brain is going to implode soon. He can’t take another bombshell before noon. Before breakfast, even. "So you've been with Steve this whole time?”

"Yes. Making sure that Fury and the rest of SHIELD don't find him. You must’ve noticed by now that Steve is a mermaid."

"He is."

"So am I." 

"Of course you are."

"He was one of us. They experimented on him but before I had my doubts about the drug so I tested it on myself too. Safe to say they weren’t happy about that—either way, SHIELD is on the brink of collapse, so we decided to make a run for it." 

"Jesus," Tony says.

He can’t conceal the fact that he’s worried for her. If there’s one thing that he’s known about Sharon, though, is that when she’s handling a situation she has a habit of being occupied in controlling all of the little details.

He remembers the days when they took care of each other, with both their parents overworking long nights and keeping secrets behind closed doors. They made a pact never to keep anything from each other. Well, turns out things get much more complicated the older you get. He’s learned that far too many times now.

"Don’t worry about me. Come on, I’ll take you to Steve. We can catch up later if you want." 

He knows she's trying. She can be as stubborn as she is loyal and perhaps their conversation is one best saved for another day; too many things to drudge up, and Tony’s really trying to stay in a good mood for the rest of the summer. He nods and picks up the bouquet of flowers again, fingers stiff and trembling slightly. He decides to leave it in the car for now and drops it in the driver’s seat.

As they arrive onto the beach, Tony notices as a lady with red curls waving goodbye at Steve as she’s walking further along the beach the other direction. Sharon trails behind and both of them disappear underneath some umbrellas at a nearby beach café.

"Wake up every morning with a babe gripping onto your surfboard?" Tony says as Steve whips around, sunburnt cheeks growing even pinker with blush.

"Hi! Oh, that was just Natasha, my surf instructor. I know I told you that I was going to be at the surf contest this weekend, but I lied. I can't surf."

"And yet you're still trying,” Tony smiles.

"Well, I wouldn’t want to let you down.”

"Maybe a good start to that would be by telling me why Sharon Carter is in your farmhouse and why you never thought to mention it."

Steve immediately grows tense in front of him. It’s kind of hard to tell what's simmering beneath, though, because the harder Tony tries to read his body language, well, the harder it becomes to try to ignore all of the intricate details of his body.

It’s almost sinful, the way Steve always seems to escape punishment. Tony’s trying to nail him to a cross all that seems to be happening is that Steve ends up getting pushed against a block of wood, body on display for yet another sinner to take and fuck, does Tony _want_ to take it. Maybe Steve is the devil.

Steve presses his towel against his face and neck, absorbing every last droplet of water steaming on his skin the morning sun. Is Tony is just supposed to stand there and watch? He has questions that need to be answered, god damn it.

“I’ll explain, Tony, I promise.”

“Good.”

“If you stay for breakfast.”

Tony's lips quirk up, only slightly impressed. So Steve's got nerve, after all.

 

-

 

It doesn’t take long for them to end up back in the farmhouse. Tony’s sitting in the kitchen again, watching Steve cooking in a preposterously tight apron, covering his bare chest from the splatters of oil flying all over the place from the stove top.

“You okay there?” Tony asks, already salivating from the smell of bacon and buttered eggs.

“All good.”

He turns off the gas and plates up the food, gently setting down the plates in front of Tony like an offering. If the table is the altar, then Tony’s the cross standing behind it, and Steve is bending over to give him everything: mind, body and soul.

Something about Steve, something about this place, this beach, this summer, this ninety-degree weather is making him feel some type of way. He can’t relax, not when there’s so much rattling under the table.

But. 

But when Steve sits across him and looks into his eyes with his staggering baby blues, Tony can see the calm waves of the ocean inside them. 

“Okay, I’ll tear through the yolk of this egg and you start talking, Mr. Mermaid,” Tony deflects the burden of the conversation back to Steve, who takes it with stride. 

It ends up being kind of a long story, the type that you wouldn’t even believe unless you’ve seen and done the impossible before. Tony’s not one to deny that or ever be a full-on skeptic, but still, some things take some getting used to. Belief requires practice, after all. 

Steve is a soldier, or was, until something went wrong on a mission. He wound up dead (or so they thought) in the middle in the Atlantic Ocean and before SHIELD came knocking on his coffin, Sharon saved his life. 

He’d taken a serum before going on the mission, something that seemed to show no effects whatsoever until, well, Sharon found him preserved in the ice, vitals perfectly intact.

"What kind of division were you in? Why'd they choose you for the serum?"

"I volunteered.”

“It’s that simple? Doctor Frankenstein cooks up a potion for one lucky man in the military and you just gave yourself to them, no questions asked?”

Steve pauses as if searching for an answer inside himself.

“I wish I could tell you. I don’t remember much from that time.”

Tony wants to interrogate that but lets it go for now.

"So you got the mystery serum. SHIELD managed to replicate it and Sharon took it as well. Now, you two are doing what, exactly, swimming from coast to coast on vacation?" 

“I needed time to get used to these,” Steve says stretching a leg out from under the table. His foot brushes against Tony’s calf for a brief moment before pulling back. “We’re going to figure out what’s going on with SHIELD, too. We think there’s something bigger going on.”

Tony sighs. Of course there is.

“You look disappointed. I’m sorry, Tony. I really didn’t want to drag you into this.”

He’s never been one to turn away from a problem, for better or for worse. He smiles weakly at Steve, who starts looking more and more worried with each passing second.

“I am and, I know. I’m just supposed to be on vacation.”

 

-

 

Winding back to summer in the 80’s, Tony and Sharon are sitting poolside one afternoon at the mansion while their families are gone. Jarvis is making them lunch and Tony’s chewing ice-cubes from the glass of lemonade that’s sitting empty on the ground.

“They’re doing Captain America-themed calendar shoots for this month’s Playboy again,” Sharon says, adjusting her sunglasses as she lies back and flips through the pages. 

“Got a copy for me?” Tony asks, leaning over to try to take a peek at the inside pages of the one she’s holding.

She reaches from under the lounge chair and hands it over to him. “Tell them your aunt served in the military and suddenly they don’t see an underage customer.”

Tony scoffs. “Yeah, that doesn’t work so well when your last name is Stark, though. You can never tell what people think of you, best to stay on the safe side and lay low.” 

“And let other people do all the dirty work for you?”

“Precisely.”

He smiles as he flips through the pages of the magazine, with pages of blonde women in plastic-tight star-spangled bikinis, breasts hanging out or showing through sheer layers of clothing. There’s also an extraordinary amount of oil all over them—they look so shiny like their skin is melting or something.

Sure, these women are hot, and Tony’s not complaining about the view in front of him, but he can’t help but wonder what the real Captain America would look like in one of these shoots. With a strong pose, body so mouth-wateringly delicious and the American flag wrapped around his package. Now that would be one hell of a magazine cover.

“If only we knew who Cap was,” Tony says, watching the pool water glistening in the mid-summer heat. “I could do a rendering, you know, of what he would look like with no clothes on.”

“With a computer or with a pencil in your diary?”

“I can draw. I design things,” Tony replies.

“You’re a mechanic, Tony, not an artist.” 

“Exactly. I can produce accurate models of things. If we knew who he was. If we had a photo—some body scans from the first experiment, anything, of his identity…” 

Sharon drops the magazine on the ground and takes off her sunglasses. She looks at Tony with the look she wears when she’s worried about him. 

“They’ll never tell us, Tony. My aunt destroyed all the files she had on him because she was heartbroken. Your dad is taking his secret with him to his grave. The only people who knew his identity were the people in his unit, who are either dead or are never going to talk. Loyalty is a bond you can't break. And Sergeant Barnes, who’s still missing until today, which probably means that he’s gone too.”

Tony feels something churning in his stomach. He hates the feeling, of not having all the answers. It feels like a direct contradiction to the type of person his father wants him to be, always chasing for new horizons and bending the rules as long as it gets him results. You can’t bend something that doesn’t exist, though, and right now, Captain America feels like nothing more than a fairytale his father used to tell him about to help him go to sleep every night.

What his father didn’t know was that that fairytale has kept him awake so many nights since. He hates it, the feeling of being obsessed with a dream. He’s a realist, not a hopeless romantic. Sharon’s right, anyway, since she always has her head on straight. He needs to quit this while he can before he grows up to be a man chasing some sort of fantasy that’s never going to come true.

He’s going to turn 18 in a week, which means he’s going to be an adult soon. He’s going to grow out of Captain America by the end of the week, and live the rest of his life freely and with no interruption by childhood crushes. It’s only for the best.

Tony goes to bed that night picturing the man stripping him down to his skin and making him come all over his uniform and helmet, using his strength to carry Tony from one surface to another. He falls asleep with the thought of kissing his cotton-candy soft lips, the wet delicacy just melting into his mouth.

 


End file.
